My Giant Math Problem. . .

God you are trying to speak to me, please don't stop or let me forget. Do not close my ears to your words, but open them and help your servant along. God I get done with my meeting with Juan to read in "Searching for God knows What":

"I have this suspicion, however, that if we are going to get to know God, it is going to be a little more like getting to know a person than practicing voodoo. And I suppose that means we are going to have to get over this dear of intimacy, or whatever you want to call it, in order to have an ancient sort of faith, the same faith showed by all the dead apostles"

How else could it be that I would pick up that book, to read that after what Juan and I have been talking about?! Explain it away you could, but she said that my excuses are exactly that and nothing more than excuses!
Then again as I lay in bed, and I can't sleep, I hear Juan's voice screaming in my head, "Jerome, Shut up and do it!" So I got up and opened my Bible to the place marked by my tourniquet (I wonder if there is symbolism there?)and start to read and as I read I come to the end of the chapter, which reads;

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

What are you trying to say... Correct me if I am wrong but I think that you are trying to say get off your lazy A$$ and run!!! Am I right? Why does it seem so much clearer now? The story of the man pushing the rock comes back to my mind! Why am I questioning when you have asked me to just keep pushing the Rock!? God why am I being so stupid? This all seems so simple now! Your not asking me to figure it all out like a giant math problem, but all you want is just to be my friend and we grow to love and understand each other in time... Patience... Trust.... Compromise, but me to you and not the other way around...

God you are too good for me! Blessed be the Name of my LORD, My God, My Savior, My GRACIOUS FATHER!

Last flower on the hill...

Long have I wanted to be able to write poetry that would move the soul and provoke the thoughts of the reader, but sadly the words that I put together lack the vivid picture wants to create. So I am left with writing childish words on a paper that is ready to fall apart because of all the time that I have erased what I wrote because like myself, I hate it. I try to change it and still nothing happens. My whole life has been me trying to get better at things and though I try, it seems that I am way to good at messing up the things that I want most. The rarest of flower sat in front of me and I watched it, love it, cared for it, adored it, and longed to hold it. Years past and I tired to hold it to my chest to show it the love that I had, the only way that i knew how to give it. I crushed the flower, it now lays broken on this mountain side and I am left with only a memory. I have searched the mountain looking for an equal to this, that I love so much, knowing that the roots would never let me have it. So I continued my search and never found an equal, the beauty so rare that I am left wanting. Though many flowers filled this mountain, none had the color, the shape, the softness, the drawing that this one flower did. So now after I have destroyed that which I have longed for so long, I am left with nothing. Trying to find one with the depth of soul that this one had, for no other touched my heart like this one has and my greatest fear is that none would ever be able to again.

Good-bye

Through my life I have not understood many things, for how can I? The world is so vast, the world is so complex, and I am just a single grain of sand as it spins through space? The thing that I understand prob the least, is relationships... For every time that I think that i have just a finger on understanding it, another turn comes and I slip from that and drop back to, what seems like, where I began.

I picked you a flower and with a smile gave it

Who Deserves More Cheer?

I may not know who you are personally, but I question you with this. . . Where is your heart when you worship God? Lately I have been asking God about worship, who is right in worship? Is it Pentecostal rolling round on the floor screaming, is it the conservative Baptist who stands and sings hymns with organs, or maybe the contemporary worship team who has 15 people on the stage playing a different instrument with the decibel level at the peak of safe levels? Who is right? I mean how can so many different styles worship the same God? Can they? Maybe! I am not going to give you any answers, but rather pose questions to you and pray that they make you think bout your approach to worship in the coming times you “draw” near to God. But then again the people that I am hoping to tell this to, they probably won’t ever listen or even hear what I am saying.

There is many people out there, myself included for a long time and maybe even now, that would look down on the Pentecostal worship style as chaotic and weird. Yet as my experience goes on and I dig deeper into the Bible I wonder about it more. What marks the worship of God? Is there one style? Is there too far? Can anything be worship to God? The first thing that comes to mind is that worship is a lifestyle and not something we do only in singing to God. The second is that there is wrong ways of worship, idolatry. But there are no idols in our culture today, right? I thought about it as I was in the coffee shop, where a twins game was on and people were verbally cheering for the twins, or other times when the Viks have been on and people scream wildly when there is a touchdown or a good play. Even better example is a home football game when Crown College Storm scores a touchdown, and you can not talk to the person sitting next to you because of the decibel lever of everyone screaming, jumping up and down, and the while claps of their hands in excitement for their team. But then, these same people that I just saw make a fool of themselves in front of a TV, which doesn’t allow the team to hear their cheers, and in the stands of a football field, stand in the bleachers of chapel and quietly sing. . . The only thing that I can hear is the worship band playing. . . No screams of joy, no exhortations of praise to God, and no wild clapping of hands! What happened? Where did the people in the stands go, where did the people in the coffee shop go? Are they not here… No they are, but they are not singing or they are sitting, where is the passion that I saw when they were watching a game? Should not the God who made the whole world and who came to earth to save my soul be much more worth of our cheers and praise!? To be honest, I think that we are all Pentecostal, but some of us are just not willing to be Pentecostal for God! We are not willing to look like a fool for God, but rather will other places?

Let’s make it clear that I am not against anyone sitting in contemplation of the wonder of God, the screaming praises of his great works, or the wild dancing that David did before the LORD. There is nothing wrong with any of that, but what I am trying to say here in short is that, Pentecostal is not the only form of worship to God and nor is the Conservative Baptist. The real thing that I want you to question is this, why will we cheer before a TV or on a football field, but refuse to in the pews of Church or the bleachers of our chapel?

**Now do not get me wrong and pick and choose things from message that you want to argue about, so listen to what I am trying to say here. You have to understand that I am not singling our one group of people, but rather a hypothetical group. **

Whose feelings matter?

I have very much wondered through my life whose feelings and good time matters the most? For so long in my life I have always made other people’s feelings come first. So even if it meant me staying home alone on a weekend, I would not make other people invite me alone. If someone didn’t want to do what I wanted to do, when deciding what movie to watch or where to go, I would go with them. I thought I would rather one of us have a bad time then both of us. I thought I was being the bigger man in giving up what I wanted to let other people have a good time. Or a final example is that I would keep my true feelings hidden so that other people could feel better about themselves.

Lately I wonder if that is the right thing to do? I have often not said how I felt so that the other person would not feel guilty or pressured into something. But should have I? Should I hid who I am or how I feel so that other’s feel better about themselves? Should I hold it in when people hurt my feelings so that they still have a good time?

What makes your feelings so much more valuable then mine? Now I know that sometimes we are not justified in how we feel, but yet other times we are. So if I am hurting, as a friend should I not be able to tell you that? Why should I have to hid the hurt inside as it festers and infects my life? I thought friends should be understanding, willing to help their friends when they are down and hurting? Or am I just wrong about friendships and feelings? Needing a new definition and book on proper etiquette on both?

Service

It was a really good day and I enjoyed myself quiet a bit in it. I like it when you are told something, but then the next day you experience it. Rob just told me the other night that service is something that I have been lacking in my life. For reading and prayer are good but sometimes those things do not do anything for you, in the fact that they can be pretty blaw sometimes. Going on from there he commented on my own life, saying that the most fulfilled time that he has ever see me was after I returned from Mexico. I was ready for change and ready to leave it all being just to go out and serve the people. Today I felt the truth of that once again, for it has been weeks that I have felt fulfilled by anything… reading, prayer, friends, even sin that I am sorry to say that I have engaged in, but then today when I was serving people at a service station I felt really good. I was happy, I was joyful and I loved every minute of it. I loved pumping people’s gas and talking with them, sometimes about nothing, but yet I got to met and talk to people who I would never even look at on the street. Instead I talked to this guy with a bald head, but long hair around the sides. We talked about me and talked about him and in that three to five minutes I connected with another person in this world without even trying. It felt good to just talk with this guy for no reason. Service, how can something that simple be so powerful that it can combat the couple weeks of depression and loneliness that I have suffered through? This time in my life I am relatively free of all things and responsibilities if I want to. So why wouldn’t I do all that I can to serve the people all around me that need Christ while I wait for the next step in my life.
Something that I don’t think about much about is the opposite side of my service and how that makes the other people feel. But because I live in a small town my mother hears about my good deeds from the old people who love to talk. While filling in a while back at the service station, I helped this old lady by taking her car through the carwash. Explaining to her how it works and that all she has to do is watch the signs and stop here… Later that week my mom came up to me and told me about how this old lady at the senior center was so impressed and blessed by my service. The sad thing about all of this is that I was only doing what comes natural for me, but the truth about all this is that people suck! So when people like me come by it is something abnormal and admirable. Oh Church we have such an opportunity to show Christ in the actions of our daily life and jobs. You may think that doing the right thing goes unnoticed, but someone is watching.

Submitting to Authority

So many times I hear people complain about the Covenant, with comments everywhere from “I should be able to make those decisions on my own” to “They are making unmoral decisions into morals.” It doesn’t matter what you think, because the only truth is that which comes from the mouth of God and from his mouth came the Holy Bible for it is written, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Dear friends before I go on from there, I want to make sure that you know that I come before you in humility, for I am no better then the worse of sinners. I have been a hypocrite many times in my life and have called people to follow the covenant, infact rebuking them for not even knowing what it says. But the fact is that I am one of those people who have broken the covenant many times, for we all are all sinners and come before our most high God guilty unless we stand under the blood of Christ. For it is only in the blood of Christ that we are clean. It reminds me of a quote by Rich Mullens, “Whenever people say, 'Christians are hypocrites,' I say, 'duh, every time we come together we are confessing that we are hypocrites, weaklings in need of God and each other.” The truth is, to be a Christian is to be a hypocrite, because we stand in Church and agree to live by the standards of God, “Be perfect therefore as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” Who of us can live up to a standard like that, of course we are going to fall, but that does not mean that we should unless stop from giving our heart away to the effort of “walking as Jesus walked.” So as I say all these things I say them also to myself, as I point a figure at you I am pointing the rest strait back at me.
Now going back to 2 Timothy, I am coming to you in a effort to rebuke you of false thinking and correct you that you might be ready to be trained in righteousness by the Christian authority of Crown. The Bible makes it very clear that we need to summit to the authority that is placed above us. It is so important that it is restated three places and then elaborated in the third. First Paul addresses it in Romans 13, “EVERYONE must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is NO authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” Paul makes it very clear in the first two verses of the chapter that everyone needs to submit to the authorities because God put them there, for there is no authority that God has not placed there. For even the evil of nations that conquered Israel were put there by God. He is trying to make the point that because we are free in Christ doesn’t mean that we should be lawless, but rather law abiding. Then in verse two Paul makes a strong point for submission, for if you rebel against the authority it is the same as rebelling against God which brings judgment onto you!
The second passage is from Hebrews 13:17, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.” Here the writer of Hebrews is imploring them to obey so that they will not be burdened by the law that they are under. For when we rebel against a law or an authority above us, there is always a consequence fro our actions, even if we believe that the actions were justified or the rules unfair, the punishment still is there. So why not rather submit so that it will not be burdensome for us, because even if we rebel we now have the punishment and the rules to bear instead of only the rules to follow. For even Jesus talked to this, for in his time on earth the Roman empire was ruling over the Jewish culture imposing their laws upon the children of Israel, but did Jesus say that they should right against them as a zealot? Far from it, instead he said, “If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” Jesus never wanted us to rebel, but instead show love in our service to that authority.
The final scripture that I want to bring to your attention is that of 1 Peter 2, here is a passage from the man that Jesus said, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Someone who has been given authority by God and Jesus for the building up of the Church, aka someone we should listen to. In his first letter he says this, “Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.” (1 Peter 2:13-14) Peter addresses the same issue that Paul addressed twice before, that we are to submit to authority, but he makes another statement in there, “for the Lord’s sake.” (is that like saying for Pete’s sake?) You are not doing this because you want to look good, but rather that you are doing this as unto the Lord. He continues on in this right after that on the issue of respect, “Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king. Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’” (1 Peter 2:17-22) Peter takes this to every part of life or social status, make sure that all who read understand that we are not to shun authority or be disrespectful to the cops or even the president, no matter how much we dislike them. He says show everyone proper respect, and not just the ones who are nice to you, but even to the ones who beat you or mistreat you. Slaves are not suppose to hate their masters, but rather show them respect and submission. But do not stop at only the outward, for out of the heart comes all things, just as you are to live the example of Jesus, who “no deceit was found in his mouth.”
I leave you with the words of John, “ We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” (1 John 2:3-6)